All the Sea Knows: Marine Art from the Museum of the City of New York
June 6 through
September 20, 2015
An exhibition that honored Connecticut and New York’s contributions to the history of maritime travel and trade with the exhibition, All the Sea Knows combined paintings and decorative arts objects from Museum of the City of New York‘s remarkable yet seldom-exhibited maritime art collection with paintings and artifacts drawn from the Florence Griswold Museum’s collection.
The exhibition took its name from Carl Sandburg’s poem “Sea-Wash,” and juxtaposed works of art with salient passages from literature to convey the many and varied ways that Americans have embraced the sea. All the Sea Knows featured works by famed nineteenth-century American painters James Bard, James Edward Buttersworth, Thomas Chambers, Edward Moran, Fitz Henry Lane, and many others. Brought together, these paintings reveal the genre of marine art to be as varied as landscape painting.
Co-curated by Florence Griswold Museum Curators Amy Kurtz Lansing and Benjamin Colman, All the Sea Knows touched upon broad themes of American life. The marine art and artifacts revealed the economic and social transformation of America in the nineteenth century—a society assuming its place in a wider world, assimilating industrial technology in the transition from sail to steam, and told the story of packet shipping through portraits of its ships and captains.
James Edward Buttersworth (1817-1894), Race Off Fort Wadsworth, CA, 1870. H: 9 1/4 in. Museum of The City of New York. Gift of Mrs. Walter D. Fletcher, 1962
Edward Moran (1829-1901), State of Liberty Enlightening the World (The Unveiling of the State of Liberty), 1886. Museum of The City of New York. Gift of J. Clarence Davies, 1934.
This exhibition was generously support by Bank of America and Connecticut Humanities. Media sponsor: Venu.
The Florence Griswold Museum received funding from the Connecticut Office of the Arts to promote activities at three museums—the Custom House Maritime Museum (New London), the Connecticut River Museum (Essex), and the Florence Griswold Museum. Through the project, the museums promoted their exhibitions, programming, and special events that highlight Connecticut’s rich maritime heritage.
